The Business of Bliss

The business of bliss. That is a term that has been thrown around for awhile now. I think I first heard about it on Oprah, but Victoria Magazine also used to have a regular photo-editorial/interview on this subject and I was always inspired by the amazing entrepreneurial women who featured there. I will have a lifelong loyalty to Victoria as they were the first ever publication who published and paid for some writing of mine many years ago.

I also always used to throw ideas around inside my head, on what my business of bliss might be.

I wonder if writers always struggle with finding what they love, because there are so many facets of life that spark interest. It is our job to be interested in many things. It's our job to want to experience many things.

I can recall wanting to be an astronaut at the age of 8, a midwife at the age of 10, a journalist at 12, a designer, a missionary, a librarian, a postie, a crafter of hand-stitched books. As I grew older I looked into forensic science, becoming a policewoman, a paramedic, a chef, a landscape designer, a psychologist. So many choices. And which one would suit me? Which one would I love?

Well, none of them, as it turns out. I am still interested in all of these careers, but it would be impossible to do all of it. I think a love of reading cultivates these interests, but I heard a quote recently from one of Alan Bennet's books. I don't quote directly, but this is the gist of it, that reading makes you a spectator in life. Writing makes you a partaker. Writing gives you a voice.

Writing is my thing. The hard, hard road of writing.

A few weeks ago I nearly applied for  job. It was a local secretarial job that I could do with my eyes closed that would have helped the family finances out. With our youngest starting school next year a job seemed to be the right thing to do. But life has a funny way of making up your mind for you. And through various circumstances and discussions I decided to put the job hunting on the shelf for awhile.

And at the same time we did a slight readjustment of rooms and beds in this rental house. Miss A has been in a tiny bedroom while we have lived here in Tauranga, but her older brother was wanting to move downstairs to be closer to his big brother, so we shifted beds about and found ourselves with an empty small room.

My beautiful, creative daughter of 11 asked if she could have it for her art studio.

That's when I was hit with a brilliant idea.

We would share the room, which is so tiny, but one wall is lined with a large table-like shelf, with a big window looking down onto the neighbours and the park at the end of the road.

So she has her paints and canvases and sketch pads on one side by the window, by the light, and I have the laptop and my camera and my notepad on the other. I can see when a friend, or the postie or the courier arrives.

And now I am working 4 days a week up here and loving every minute of it. I come up the stairs when I get back from the school run and sit down at the computer and think of the long hours stretching in front of me where I can be creative and make things. I am in the process of putting together a website, a re-launch of my children's book and another creative project (well, several actually) in the works as well. It's all so exciting and everyday I can't wait to come up here and do what I love.

Sure, I'm not making any money from it at the moment, it's all in the design and planning stage, but there is the hope of that to come.

Today, while I sit here writing this, I look out over the treetops of my neighbourhood, hear the rain splattering on the roof and distant thunder on the horizon and I couldn't think of anywhere else I'd rather be. This is bliss to me.